In hospitals, contaminated organic materials, such as urine or blood, are often accidentally spilled on the floor. These spills must be recuperated and disposed of in a timely fashion, so as not to compromise the hygienic integrity of the hospital. Also, in surgery rooms and the like, wasted blood from the patient is collected in waste bags, which are ackward in handling and prone to accidental leaks and contamination. These safety concerns have been heightened in the last decade by the emergence of an insidious killer, namely the HIV virus causing a currently irreversible lethal medical condition called Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The vector of transmission of the VIH virus includes body-released liquids: blood, sperm and amniotic fluid. The workers in hospitals, particularly maintenance personnel that have to deal with these organic liquid spills on the floor and medical personnel working in surgery rooms, have therefore to regularly handle these organic materials. Clearly, nosocomial contamination can be an implicit concern to these hospital employees, and such concern may reduce the efficiency of their work. This is not desirable, of course.
U.S. Pat. No. 966,060 issued in 1910 to Otis SEVERNS, discloses a compound for cleaning ground scattered dust. This compound includes at least the four following ingredients:
(a) a carrier element (corn cobs); PA1 (b) a dust absorbing, carrier-stabilized element (oil); PA1 (c) a disinfectant; and PA1 (d) a perfume. PA1 (a) an absorbing element (including fibrous plant materials such as citrus pulp and grain); and PA1 (b) a disinfectant (of microbicide capability). PA1 (a) absorbing hydrophobic AND hydrophilic materials; PA1 (b) deodorizing by not only masking odours and smells but also by neutralizing the odour producing substances; and PA1 (c) at least bacteriostatic effect.
It is understood that such a ground dust cleaning compound would be ineffective in attempting to capture ground-standing water-based liquid bodies, since water is immiscible in oil due to the hydrophobic features of the oil element in the compound.
A similar drawback is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,393 issued Mar. 29, 1988 to Edward LOWE. In this patent, there is disclosed an absorbing compound for capturing oil and grease, said compound including at least the following ingredients:
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,849 issued Apr. 14, 1981 to M. BENJAMINSON, there is disclosed a cleaning compound for cleaning inter alia ground-standing urine and vomit (see column 2, lines 35-40). This compound has the capability of:
However, such a compound is limited to the following ingredients: alkali metal bicarbonate, alkali metal chloride and fuller's earth.
It is further recognized that current synthetic disposable diapers for infants have been using for a number of years a highly efficient urine-absorbing granular material called sodium polyacrylate. Polyacrylate crystals can absorb up to eighty times their own dry weight in water, while concurrently transforming this water into a gel. This gel then becomes stabilized into the diaper filling, thus preventing accidental outward urine seeping during diaper release from the infant and bin discharge.